Man Blasted for Working on 'Crowded' Subway Delivers Perfect Response

Earlier this morning a post went up on Reddit's NYC subreddit decrying some space-hogging subway rider for taking up much-needed legroom with his laptop stance.

"Being a workaholic is no excuse for being an asshole. Spotted on the crowded 1 train this morning," read the OP's pissy headline.

After several Redditors pointed out to OP that this hardly constitutes a "crowded" train, and that taking pictures of people in public without their consent and then calling them an "asshole" behind their backs is a total dick move, the perfect thing happened: The subject of the photo suddenly showed up and politely set the record straight.

Hey, that's me!! Didn't notice you're snapping this, I would have waved in order to get a more flattering photo. My front looks less bald than my top, honest!

Some background: I'm wrapping up my PhD thesis. In parallel, I started a new job, my wife went back to school, and we have a new baby (second kid). My wife and I generally sleep 3-4 hours on a good night. Rest of the time is work, work, work, weekends included, with the exception of one free weeknight a week each of us gets in order to preserve some meager amount of sanity.

This means I could either get some work done on the subway or reduce the aforementioned amount of sleep even further. (BTW, at this specific instant I am reviewing the latest comments my adviser gave to my method section.) Usually I manage to get a sit [sic] but I got delayed at daycare this morning, hence this pitiful situation. I apologize for inconveniencing you—personally, I did not feel that the train was so packed (the aisle was quite empty). I switched to a sit [sic] at 72nd St.

Anyhow, have a good day and I hope poor sods such as myself will be your greatest sources of consternation in life. And to all of the worried parties, the subway floor is relatively clean (you discover this when your toddler throws a temper tantrum on it...). As far as I can see my pants are fine.

Thoroughly reverse-shamed, OP tried his best to pretend like he never called a stranger an "asshole" for no good reason and wrote this in response:

Haha, yeah, I saw you get into a seat at 72, I mentioned that in a reply somewhere else too. Sorry for taking a picture, and I guess subsequently posting it here, but it looked pretty funny from my view. And it did get pretty packed after 110, as it always does around that time. Congrats on the PhD and the new baby! And the gold for that matter! Have a good one, and good luck!